"That's actually smart. More restraint than I expected from either of you." She picks up her wine, studies me over the rim. "But Lana? Waiting doesn't mean the feelings disappear. Itjust means you're trying not to act on them. That's going to be hard."
"I know."
"And if Ezra drags this out? If the legal proceedings take months? You're just supposed to exist in this space of acknowledged attraction without doing anything about it?"
I haven't thought that far ahead. The assumption was that Ezra's challenge would resolve quickly—either I'd accept his settlement, or we'd go to court and Mira would eviscerate his case. But legal proceedings don't work on convenient timelines. Discovery could take months. Depositions, motions, negotiations. The whole machinery of estate litigation grinding forward while I try to maintain professional distance from someone I kissed this morning.
"I don't know," I admit. "We didn't plan for extended timelines."
"Then maybe you need to revisit the agreement. Figure out what waiting actually means in practice." She finishes her wine, stands, and heads toward the kitchen. "Come help me with dinner. Confession is easier while chopping vegetables."
I follow her into the kitchen—its small but functional, filled with the smell of garlic and herbs and something baking that makes my stomach remember I barely ate today. She hands me a cutting board and knife, points me toward bell peppers that need dicing.
We work in the kind of companionable rhythm that comes from years of friendship. She stirs something on the stove while I chop vegetables, and the domestic normalcy of it helps ground me after a day that's felt anything but normal.
"So yesterday at Marconi's," Solange says after a few minutes of comfortable work. "How did Jax manage to just sitthere and watch? I kept wanting to cross the restaurant and tell Ezra to shut up."
"He had rules," I say. "From his mentor. Specific parameters about when he could intervene."
"Rules?" Solange looks up from the stove. "What kind of rules?"
So I tell her about Elias. About Jax asking him to have veto power over the protection because external accountability prevents obsession from becoming possession. About the specific rules Elias gave Jax for Thursday: document instead of defend, let me fight my own battles, text first before intervening.
"That's actually impressive," Solange says when I finish. "Most men in Jax's position would just trust their own judgment. He's actively seeking accountability from someone who'll tell him when he's crossing lines."
"That's what makes it different from Gabriel. Gabriel never questioned his own judgment. Never asked anyone whether his monitoring was justified or excessive. Just did what he wanted and called it care."
"Exactly." She hands me cherry tomatoes to halve. "So what are you actually afraid of? That Jax will become Gabriel? Or that you're making good choices and don't know how to trust that?"
The question lands harder than she probably intended. What am I afraid of?
"Both," I admit. "I'm afraid Jax's protection will escalate into control the way Gabriel's care escalated into abuse. But I'm also afraid that I'm so conditioned to expect control that I won't be able to recognize healthy attention when it's offered."
"Those are valid fears." She's adding vegetables to the pot now, building something that smells like it might save me. "Buthere's what I know about you, Lana. You left Gabriel. Maybe not in the way you planned, maybe not with the clarity you wanted, but you left. You rebuilt your life from nothing. Started a foundation. Fought back when Ezra tried to intimidate you. You're not the same woman who married Gabriel five years ago."
"I don't feel different. I feel like I'm constantly acting like I’m strong while barely holding together underneath."
"Everyone feels like that. The difference is you're actually doing the work instead of just saying you are." She points her spoon at me for emphasis. "You're in therapy twice a week. You set boundaries with Jax and held him to them. You negotiated surveillance terms that give you power instead of removing it. That's not someone who's repeating old patterns. That's someone who's learning new ones."
I want to believe her. Want to accept that growth is happening even when it feels like I'm just surviving increment by increment.
"What if I'm wrong about him?" The fear arrives fully formed. "What if Jax's protection is just better marketing for the same control Gabriel used? What if six months from now I'm trapped again and can't remember how I got there?"
Solange stops cooking, turns to face me fully. "Then you leave. The same way you left Gabriel. Maybe not perfectly, maybe not cleanly, but you leave. Because here's what I know for certain—you're capable of leaving. You've proven that already."
The reassurance helps fractionally. Leaving Gabriel cost me five years and a death I can't fully remember. But I did leave. Whether through planning or accident, whether by pushing or failing to save him, the outcome remains: I'm no longer in that marriage.
Maybe that capability—the ability to leave when staying becomes unbearable—is the real difference between who I was and who I'm becoming.
We finish cooking together, and by 7:30 PM we're eating pasta with vegetables and bread that's still warm from the oven. Normal food, normal conversation, the kind of evening that reminds me life exists beyond legal threats and complicated attraction.
My phone buzzes at 8:14 PM. Text from Jax:Meeting with Lucien finished. He found something on Ezra you'll want to know about. Can I call?
I show Solange the text. She reads it, raises an eyebrow. "He's asking permission to call instead of just calling. That's good boundary management."
"Or it's an act. Asking permission in ways that make refusal seem unreasonable."
"You could test that. Say no. See how he responds."
